Philip J. Crowley

Professor of Practice and Fellow

Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication, George Washington University

Philip J. (P.J.) Crowley is a Professor of Practice and Fellow at the Institute for Public Diplomacy and Global Communication at The George Washington University, where he currently teaches courses on public diplomacy and crisis communications. P.J. appears frequently as a national security commentator on national and global television networks, including as a regular contributor to the BBC.

He served as the Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs and Spokesman for the U.S. Department of State between 2009 and 2011 and was the primary U.S. government interlocutor with major media regarding the impact of the release of classified diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks. He resigned from that position following public comments critical of the government’s pre-trial treatment of Private First Class Bradley Manning. Atlantic Magazine named him as one of 21 Brave Thinkers in 2011.

P.J. is a retired Air Force colonel and is a veteran of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1991. He served on the National Security Council staff at the White House as a special assistant to President Clinton and deputy press secretary. He deployed to NATO Headquarters in Brussels during the 1999 Kosovo crisis to support then NATO Secretary General Javier Solana.

He has authored several studies on national and homeland security issues, most recently Homeland Security and the Post-9/11 Era for the American Constitution Society for Law and Policy and The Rise of Transparency and Decline of Secrecy in the Age of Global and Social Media for the Penn State Journal of Law & International Affairs.